Open Call for Two International Fellowships at Scuola Piccola Zattere Venice, Italy

Application deadline: 4 September 2026, 10:00 am (CEST)Location: Venice, ItalyNumber of fellowships: 2Duration: 3 monthsFellowship periods: Early January–early April 2027 or mid-April–mid-July 2027Grant: €5,000Research budget: €2,000Additional support: Accommodation, round-trip travel and reimbursement of visa fees

The Fellowship

Scuola Piccola Zattere welcomes applications from international artists and cultural practitioners for two three-month fellowships taking place during its third season of activity, titled Living Document.

The opportunity is open to artists, curators, researchers, architects, choreographers, performers, writers and practitioners working across other cultural fields.

Selected fellows will develop their artistic practice or research at Scuola Piccola Zattere in Venice during one of the following periods:

• Early January–early April 2027

• Mid-April–mid-July 2027

Applicants may apply for either period or indicate that they are available for both.

About Scuola Piccola Zattere

Scuola Piccola Zattere is a non-profit space for continuous education and research across the expanded field of contemporary art.

Its activities include exhibitions, commissions, residencies, fellowships, workshops, seminars, discussions and performative events. The programme follows an integrated methodological approach that encourages exchange between different formats of study, production and public engagement.

About the Fellowship Programme

The international fellowship offers practitioners dedicated time and space to focus on their research and ongoing projects while engaging with the Scuola Piccola Zattere community and Venice’s cultural landscape.

The fellowships will take place immediately before or during the opening months of the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Participants will have opportunities to:

• Exchange knowledge and work alongside practitioners from different disciplines and cultural contexts

• Receive and offer mentorship and education

• Participate in the institution’s activities

• Contribute to Scuola Piccola Zattere’s public programme

• Share their research through workshops, presentations, seminars, screenings, performances or other formats

The programme adopts a circular and iterative approach to research, allowing public exchanges to generate new areas of exploration for subsequent phases of study, development and production.

Living Document

Rather than treating its annual themes as isolated areas of enquiry, Scuola Piccola Zattere develops each research season from the questions and trajectories explored in previous years.

The 2026–2027 season, titled Living Document, will investigate:

• Practices that revisit or reactivate archival traces, regulatory documents and principles, revealing their nature as living, processual and continually evolving structures

• Rules as generative tools for customs, collective rituals and games, as well as constraints that can be circumvented to reveal unexpected possibilities

• Forms of aggregation, conflict and negotiation within social dynamics, examined through relationships between space and the body, architecture and performativity, and instruction and action

These themes will inform a collective research process across the Scuola’s different disciplines, residencies, study programmes and public activities.

What Is Offered

Each fellowship includes:

• An individual study space within a shared studio at Scuola Piccola Zattere for three months

• A grant of €5,000 covering the full fellowship period

• A research budget of €2,000

• Accommodation in Venice

• Round-trip travel to Venice

• Reimbursement of visa fees, where applicable

Applications from duos and collectives are welcome. However, the grant, research budget and accommodation provision remain the same, regardless of the number of participants.

Requirements

Selected fellows will be expected to:

• Maintain a continuous presence at the Scuola Piccola Zattere studios throughout the fellowship

• Participate in the institution’s activities

• Develop proposals for the public programme

• Grant reproduction rights for images and texts they produce for communication and promotional purposes, as well as for a potential publication at the end of the project

Candidates are responsible for obtaining any visas, residence permits and insurance required for their time abroad. Scuola Piccola Zattere can provide an invitation letter and reimburse visa fees where necessary.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Applications are open to practitioners of any nationality

• There is no formal age limit, although the programme is particularly intended for practitioners in the post-academic phase of their careers, typically under the age of 40

• A good command of English is required

• Non-EU applicants must hold a valid passport for international travel

Duos and collectives may apply, provided that every participating member meets the eligibility requirements. Applications from collectives must be submitted by one member holding written authorisation signed by the other members.

Note: This call has been edited for formatting purposes. To read the complete listing and apply, please visit the link below.

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